This week's news 

This week opens with a hideously dramatic example of one person turning to violence against others for no reason beyond their alien culture and life-style.

The American soldier can have had no personal animus against his innocent and randomly chosen victims, some of them children. He destroyed what was different. That sharp sense of difference can be very dangerous.

At the same time moral battle lines are being drawn in England. The government is strongly promoting marriage rather than other committed relationships for family stability and wants to open the institution of marriage to gay couples in the UK. The Roman Catholic hierarchy says this simply must not be allowed to happen; the distinctiveness of heterosexual marriage must be maintained.

Some people feel it is good, and not dangerous, to have a sharp sense of ‘difference’. But different groups want the line drawn in different places, between gay and straight relations, or between married and unmarried couples.

Reflection

The passage from John makes the difference between good and evil, dark and light seem seductively clear. But there can be real difficulty where both sides in an argument – as in the matter of gay marriage – are convinced that they are acting out of love and therefore in keeping with God’s will. We need a great deal of humility in the presence of the depth, breadth, and complexity of the divine love.

In Lent the suffering involved in uncompromising love is at the forefront of our minds. When does the justice which is part of God’s love demand suffering, and from whom?

Sometimes the problem may be that the boundary between light and darkness seems all too clear to those who have not sufficiently considered the claims of a love capable of embracing the whole world. Verse 14 contains a warning! Who of us knows the truth? What are the boundaries of darkness?

Faith is deeply entwined with culture. Those of one faith community may find it hard to appreciate the truths cherished by another because of the forms of language or modes of practice in which they are expressed. This may similarly be true of gay and straight communities. But when mutual respect is real and insights can be shared, both communities may move deeper into the light which all truth-loving people prefer (verse 21).

What should Christians do when confronted with practices which seem to them to be wholly contrary to God’s loving purposes? It seems likely that NATO forces will now be withdrawn sooner rather than later from Afghanistan. The more shaky the democratic government left in place if NATO leaves in a hurry, the greater the chance that women’s rights, among others, will fade away before the excesses of a triumphant Taliban. Should we find that situation acceptable? Is it any more acceptable to perpetuate a situation which provokes atrocities from all sides?

There is something very poignant in the way the twisted secret anger and treachery of Judas lead to the lifting up of the Son of Man: human darkness and deceit are used to bring God’s open light. Perhaps in Lent we need to be more aware of humanity’s frailty and less ready to assume that because of our beliefs we can participate in the divine clarity of vision. And yet, clarity of vision, through light which overcomes darkness, is part of the promise (verse 19). Half-truths and shadows are not forever. We need to ask for patience.

Prayer

Some preparative reflection on the nature of the light we are urged to approach.

Hail holy Light, offspring of Heav'n first-born,
Or of th' Eternal coeternal beam
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light,
And never but in unapproachèd light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee...     
                         (John Milton from Paradise Lost book 3, lines 1 - 5)

Milton’s beautiful hymn to light is all the more moving when we realise it was written by a blind man!
Meditate about what light means to you.
Think of the pleasure of seeing the days lengthen at this time of year.
Think of the return of warmth to the soil.
Look forward to watching the summer flowers open and fill the air with scent as the sun warms them.
Think about sun on water, on the sea.
Think about warmth on your face, sunlight on the arms and legs of children at the sea-side.
Look forward to days when getting out of the dazzling light will itself be a pleasure!
And give thanks. Thanks for light and thanks for warmth.
Thanks for beauty and colour and scent.
And thanks too for cool darkness, peace and shade.
In this world we can only enjoy light in the context of shadow. And shadow because there is light. But God is that greater light which knows no change and no darkness and yet is perfect.
Amen.

Questions

Some questions, like whether we should legalise gay marriage, or accept that a treaty made by the West with Afghanistan will take education away from women again, have no easy answers. You might like to take one such question and assign different members to put the case that each side is ‘the light’.

Young People

We hear a lot today about openness (e.g. Open Government, freedom of information) but also a lot about being careful about personal information (e.g. on the internet), and about invasions of privacy and rights to private life.

• What do you think about openness on the one hand and on the other taking care of privacy?
• How much should you share, and how widely? What about unkind gossip, or things someone told you thinking they would be kept confidential?
• What is the difference between keeping things hidden and keeping them confidential?

Brenda Vance is a URC elder and retired Higher Education teacher living in Sussex.

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